It is well known to provide a container having one or more apertures for dispensing food items such as grated cheese and spices. When such salt shakers, grated cheese shakers, or other types of food supplements in the nature of granular or flake particles are provided in shakers, moisture can cause the particles to adhere to one another in clumps, thus impeding exit of those particles when the shaker is inverted. When the particles in the shaker bind together in clumps larger than the apertures, they are precluded and/or impeded from passing through the apertures when the shaker is inverted and shook. Mass marketed granular cheese products are sold in inexpensive disposable polymer containers typically with a cylindrical container portion with an open threaded mouth substantially the circumferential size of the portion of the container that holds the granular cheese product. Typically there is no clump decimation feature other than by shaking and forcing the food product through apertures in the top cover. This results in a lack of control of the dispensed food.
The covers in such granular cheese products are typically injection molded with one or two pieces and in order to be commercially viable should be very inexpensive to manufacture, simple to operate, reliable, and highly functional.
Certain solutions to breaking up spices or food products in dispense containers are known.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,134,575 to Vogel et al. discloses a two piece closure for a food container including a top having dispensing apertures therethrough and a cover that can be rotatable relative to the top. The cover can have a downwardly extending projection in the form of a radially extending skirt configured to sweep residual matter that may remain on the surface of the top. As the cover is rotated about the top, matter is collected by the skirt and returned into the container through the dispensing apertures. While this skirt may function to remove residual matter from the top, it does nothing to agitate matter that may be adhering together to allow it to come through the dispensing apertures from the container in the first place.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,469 to Wallays et al. discloses a condiment shaker including a wiper unit including a plurality of wiping blades. In operation, the base container and wiper unit are rotated relative to a dispensing top. The wiping blades rotate along an inner surface of the dispensing top to encourage the flow of food product through the apertures. However, because the wiper unit does not rotate relative to the base container, it does not serve to agitate the contents of the container.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,935,538 to Stelcher discloses an anti-clog system for a shaker. The anti-clog system includes a rotatable central stem extending into the container with an agitator portion comprising a screw-like thread or projecting elements extending from the central stem. The stem is rotated via a winder that is centered over the stationary cap. However, the central location of the winder means that a user's hand operating the winder may interfere with dispensation of the product if the agitator portion is being actuated while the product is being dispensed.
The above containers typically either do not provide an internal agitation feature that readily rotatable with respect to the base container, or are not amenable to inexpensive manufacture. There thus remains a need in the art for a food shaker that can adequately break up clumped matter within the container while the matter is being dispensed by the shaker and is suitable to be sold as a disposable container with the product. There also remains a need to be able to manufacture and assemble such a container quickly and inexpensively.